Apple Venus Volume 1

And one of the titles was Haiku Blast, or just Haiku. And then I read somewhere that "Oh, Michael Stipe's working on Haiku" and I thought, "Well, fuck that. I'm not calling it that." ~ Andy Partridge

AP: Now this one, and you probably know the stories of this one too. I initially wanted to call it The History of the Middle Ages.

WL: Yeah, I love that.

AP: Because we were middle-aged men. Dave and I were at each other's throats all the time and he absolutely refused to be part of being labeled middle-aged. Because Dave's very sensitive about aging. I think because he thinks his life's been blighted by diabetes. I don't know. He's just ultra-sensitive about aging. And we had this bit of an argument. [Dave said] "I'm not middle-aged. I don't want people thinking of me as middle-aged. I won't be part of it if you're calling it The History of The Middle Ages." So, that was dropped. And I also wanted to, because the Fossil Fuel sleeve looked so good I thought of the possibility of molding

the outer plastic case into a raised design. You know, you could do hundreds of things with that. And I quite liked the idea of having it molded to look like ripples in a pond.

WL: That would be neat.

AP: Then the booklet contains the photograph. There's like a carp scurrying out of the way you can see the gravel at the bottom of the pond. And the object that's been dropped into the pond would be in the center of the sleeve. And that's what had caused the ripples on the plastic outer. I hadn't determined what that object should be. But I quite liked the idea of it being, because I was reading some haiku stuff, a sort of Japanese looking carp pond. So maybe it was just going to be a pebble or something like that. And one of the titles was Haiku Blast, or just Haiku. And then I read somewhere that "Oh, Michael Stipe's working on Haiku" and I thought, "Well, fuck that. I'm not calling it that."[much laughter] You know, I don't want to be accused of stealing anything that they've done.

WL: That's for sure. After they ripped off R-E-M from X-T-C.

AP: Well, there you go. Say no more. And I thought, "Well perhaps we just need

an onomatopoetic title." Then I was roundly scoffed at for bringing up the title Bloop. [laughter] Which was the sound of the pebble actually dropping in the pond. And everyone said "No, it sounds like the sound you make when you take a shit."

WL: [laughing] It sounds like the sound of a middle-aged man taking a shit.

AP: [laughing] Taking a shit. There you go. So that was scrapped and now the whole thing, kind of "Ahh, forget it. What am I going to do?" And again I bought a secondhand book. And I'll tell you which book it is. It's called Direct Mail Designs International, by Bellinger. And there was a page in there that shows how you can print on aluminum foil. And to make the most of it they've actually reproduced a piece of aluminum foil in the book. This book is from, like 1961 or something. In fact, I'll tell you what year it's from. It's from 1963. And they've printed on a piece of Alcoa aluminum

foil. And to show how they can use this new idea of printing on aluminum foil, they printed a very colorful thing; a peacock feather. And I suggested nabbing this, basically. I didn't know what we were going to call the album but I loved this idea of the peacock feather. Then several people said, "Oh no, you mustn't use that. That's terrible bad luck." I thought, "Oh my God. Oh no." You know, I'm rather superstitious. And I thought, "I've got to research this." And I did a lot of research, and I went through lot's of books on symbols and symbolism, and so on. Asking as many people as I could. And I think for every person that said it was bad luck I found two or three people, or two or three articles, that said it was very good luck. So it outweighed the bad. And I thought, "Well, it's such a nice looking image on the metal foil, because it really has a luster to it." I'd no idea what to call the album, but I loved the idea of this foil printed peacock feather. And then, as you know, people have this theory that our albums are called something on the previous album.

WL: Well, they were for a while.

AP: No, that was pure coincidence.

WL: Was it really?

AP: Pure coincidence. 'Cause there was [singing] "orange and lemon raincoats

roll and tumble." And then there was "some nonsuch net holds me aloft."

WL: Were those the only ones that were connected? Let's see - Oranges & Lemons, that was from Skylarking. Nonsuch came from the line in Oranges & Lemons. Yeah, so it was just the three albums. [three, including AV1]

AP: Well, it was just those two. And they were pure coincidence. And somebody said, "Well, that's what they're doing. They're taking their album titles from a previous lyric." And I thought, "Well, this is silly. But hey, why not? I'll give it a go." [laughter] And I scoured through the lyrics on Nonsuch and there was "apple venus on a half-open shell" from "Then She Appeared." And the center of the peacock feather looks like a, sort of a cross between an apple and a heart. And I thought, "Wow! That's great. That looks like the center of the feather." So that was it. It became Apple Venus, just because I was determined to use this sort of trade example of how you can print on foil. It just looked looked gorgeous with a peacock feather.

WL: I like that cover a lot.

AP: When I looked at the center of it, it just looked like a heart and an apple. So I thought, "Well that's it. It's Apple Venus."

WL: I like the simplicity of it also. It's somehow complex and simple at the same time; naturally complex.

AP: Yeah. But you know, you arrive at these things through complex ways. Thank God it wasn't Bloop. [laughter]

AP: Okay, "Easter Theater" and "I'd Like That". [laughing] I'm trying to remember what they were.

WL: They were adaptations on the…

AP: On the feather.

WL: And the sunflower and the egg.

AP: Well, I just wanted to keep them all natural objects that actually pulled your mind back to the center of the feather. How shall I say this? The universe in a small thing. The known universe, all contained in that one small natural area. The center of a peacock feather, it's like the center of the universe or the center of all thought, or the center of all intention. And I wanted objects that would make the connection between naturality, if such a word exists. I've just made up a word! Natural things. I thought it was a nice way of doing it. "I'd Like That" for a while, I think was called "Sunflower" or "Like

a Sunflower". And obviously, being part of the lyrics the choice for the sunflower was a natural thing.

WL: And "Easter Theater" with the egg?

AP: With the egg, there you go. Well, Easter being the Germanic fertility goddess and the egg being her symbol of fertility. Which is why we have chocolate eggs at Easter. As a kid I never knew what Easter meant. Does it mean it comes from the east? What does it mean?

WL: I thought it was all about some magic bunny rabbit that left crap at my doorstep.

AP: Well, it kind of is! Because the rabbit was originally the hare, which is a fertility symbol because they start fucking their brains out around that time of year. [laughter] And the egg too, that's our fertility thing here. Here's life contained in that. So there's the whole mystery of Easter revealed. [laughter] It's quite an easy image to find. It was just natural objects that seemed to sit within the center of the peacock feather.